Brooks’ Firing Shows that the NAACP Doesn’t Have a Clue

Raynard Jackson says that Benjamin Hooks and Bruce Gordon, former leaders of the NAACP, made a difference in America and the organization.

By Raynard Jackson (NNPA Newswire Columnist)

Once again the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has proven why it is the Hillary Clinton of the Civil Rights Movement.

The NAACP used to be a storied organization, that was a major player in the historic fight for full equality for Blacks in America; that was before they got bought out by the Democratic Party in the early 1970s; before they bowed downed to the alter of the homosexual community; and before they sold themselves to the likes of radical liberal, George Soros and his open borders crowd who believe everyone has a right to be in the U.S., whether legally or illegally.

The equality that the NAACP once sought was not predicated on some “special” rights or entitlements that some groups wanted the courts to create out of thin air (gay rights). The NAACP and Blacks wanted the rights that the U.S. Constitution already said we were entitled to. In other words, the NAACP simply wanted the government to enforce the laws on the books, not create new ones.

Like Clinton, the NAACP can never seem to bring itself to accept responsibility for any of their own actions; and the plight of the Black community can always be blamed on others.

This Clintonian tick led them last Friday to fire their latest president and CEO, Cornell William Brooks.

Brooks should have never been hired for this post; the national board selected him three years ago, because they wanted someone that was easy to control.

Brooks was a horrible speaker and wasn’t as charismatic as some of their past leaders, but he was easily controlled.

Since the 1970s, the NAACP has only had two heads, who made any difference in America and the organization; those two people were Benjamin Hooks and Bruce Gordon.

Hooks was an icon of the Civil Rights Movement and a staunch Republican. Richard Nixon appointed him to serve on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the early seventies. He was the first Black to ever serve on this commission and is singularly responsible for the diversity in media ownership that we see today. Without Hooks, networks like BET and TV One never would have existed.

But somehow, the NAACP rarely mentions Hooks’ Republican ties in any of the group’s written literature, but I digress.

Maybe Hook’s speech at the NAACP’s 1990 convention is why they sanitized his Republican linage.

During the speech, Hooks said that, “It’s time today… to bring it out of the closet: No longer can we proffer polite, explicable, reasons why Black America cannot do more for itself…I’m calling for a moratorium on excuses. I challenge black America today—all of us—to set aside our alibis.”

Ouch!

Bruce Gordon came from a family with deeps roots in the Civil Rights Movement, but he chose to make his mark on America by working his way up the ladder in corporate America. He became a high-ranking executive with telecom giant Verizon.

So, his appointment to lead the NAACP in 2005 shocked everyone, because they typically hired preachers or politicians. President George W. Bush had rightfully ignored the group and refused to attend their national convention until Gordon came on board. Gordon’s business background helped him to navigate the political battlefield and he was able to build a personal relationship with President Bush, to the dismay of his group’s board.

This friction led to his abrupt resignation in 2007. Gordon stated: “I did not step into the role to be a caretaker, to be dictated to…I stepped into the role to understand as best I could the needs of the African American community and then to propose strategies and policies and programs and practices that could improve conditions for African Americans…The things I had in mind were not consistent with what some—unfortunately, too many—on the board had in mind.”

The national board of the NAACP demands undying fealty and they love to micromanage their presidents; any attemps to cut their puppet strings and you become useless to them. God forbid a president makes a decision on his own or attempts to make the group more relevant to the 21st century.

I know many of their leaders from across the country and the tragedy is that most of them don’t even believe in the issues the national board has made a priority. Publically, many state NAACP leaders say one thing and privately they believe another.

How can the NAACP claim to represent the Black community when they are out of sync with what the Black community believes and wants?

Black community is very conservative. Blacks don’t support amnesty for illegals. Blacks are the largest voting block that supports school choice and vouchers! This, despite the NAACP passing a resolution last year at their national convention opposing school choice. And they wonder why they are no longer relevant to the Black community?

I dare the NAACP national board to choose someone like Condoleezza Rice, Shannon Reeves, or Jennifer Carroll as their next leader; if they are truly interested in regaining relevancy, that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Unfortunately, the NAACP national board is totally incapable of thinking outside the box or giving up control. The NAACP has become the retirement village for the Black bourgeoisie.

Raynard Jackson is founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF, visit www.bafbf.org. You can follow Raynard on Twitter @Raynard1223.

Related Articles

By Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. (President of the NNPA) Today, we are exposed to 10-minute news segments six times per hour in a 24-hour news cycle on television and the radio. Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are now used for instantaneous news, commentary, Read More

By Raynard Jackson (NNPA Newswire Columnist) I think Donald Trump is the embodiment of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion. Newton’s law states that, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” During last year’s presidential campaign, when Trump said he wanted to Read More

Watch

BlackPressUSA.com, the public news website of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), is committed to showcasing the work of NNPA member publications and to telling the untold stories of the Black community in the United States and the Black Diaspora around the world.

BlackPressUSA.com editorial content caters to the African American community and features national and international news, politics, entertainment, sports, technology, health, automobiles and faith-based commentaries.